Your painting is complete, it's time to consider certain aspects of finishing such as framing, to frame or not to frame. Some of my paintings look better friend, while others look better unframed. And framing acts as a segue between the image that you've painted, and the style of the room or the place where it's going to be hung. A frame can change how have you received and ultimately feels about your painting. For example, a traditional imagery like a classic, still life a portrait landscape. These paintings can be enhanced with a traditional frame, while paintings with a more contemporary image and abstraction.

Something contemporary may look better without a frame. So most of my work is contemporary. And, but yet still, as you can see behind me, I have a I have a variety I've got one that's framed with a frame Traditional frame because I wanted to bring that traditional style to something contemporary. Sometimes it works in your favor. And the other contemporary pieces have no frame. So what I like to do is I like to work on some of these boards that already come with sides that aren't too small, about an inch or more.

And they're called cradled boards. These are made by ampersand and they already come with sides. So if you're working on something flat, you can get a carpenter or do it yourself and add some sides to it. Once you add sides, it actually will come away from the wall when you hang it and make a statement make a statement about being an object. And that's a very contemporary thing to add to your painting. What I noticed is that when I walk into a room or walk into a gallery or Museum, I often see the sides first and then the The image itself, and the sides seem to me to be a foreshadowing about what's to come what the viewer is going to see.

Let me show you what happens when you do something that's completely different from what the image is about. Let's say I take black paint and just paint the sides black. I'll just paint a little bit here was painted black about halfway, just to show you got some on the front. Now, if you were to look at this painting from the side first, here's this nice black. It's a beautiful black, but it's glossy, and it's also a very strong color. Then when you look at this image, it's very subtle.

And it's almost like a disappointment when you go from one to the other. What if something very jolting was used like red. You know what if you say Well, I'd like to perk up my painting, I think I'll paint the sides red. probably not a good idea unless your painting is red. But the same thing will happen. If you look at this first, and as you walk in the room and see the red and then you see this, it's just going to be a disappointment because there's a big jolt between the side and the front.

So some artists like to do what's called wrapping the image, they like to actually paint the exact image from the front along the sides. I tend to avoid that because it makes me feel like it's like wrapping paper. The idea is to create the illusion that this is an experience of space. If the sides have the exact same image as the front, as you come across it, it's going to look like it's flat like a wrapping paper wrapping square. My favorite way of handling this sides used to pick the predominant color that's happening in the work itself. And then to make that a little bit lighter and a little grayer, and paint the sides with that.

So I have pre mixed what I thought was an average general color that's being used a lot in this painting. And that was this kind of a neutral green. I think I actually did match the green Exactly. I tend to, again, want to gray out that color. I rarely use the exact same color that's in the image itself on the sides, but I will come close. I will mix a color that's very, very close here and then turn it gray.

Let me show you what I'll do. So here's the green color and almost matches exactly this image. So I start with that. From there, I'm going to add a little bit of black A little bit of white, I always want it to be a little bit grayer, a little bit lighter and a little more neutral. I think I added too much black, that's okay, that a little more white. What you're looking for is a neutral gray.

That actually that actually relates to the colors in the painting itself. So if we just take the knife now and look, see how that's a little bit grade from the main color in the painting can even go a little bit more and a little more white. And now I will paint aside and we'll look at the difference. There's something very satisfying about finishing a painting. And then just mixing color. I love mixing color, as you probably have figured by the time you finish this video.

But there's something lovely about just finding the perfect color to finish off your painting. And now, if we come across this painting on the side, and then look at the image, look at what happens. There's just a different experience when you go from here to here. And when you go from here to here, so we want to avoid a jolt and bring the attention to the side. And we want to really just think of it as foreshadowing and creeping up onto the painting itself. Now, sometimes I have paintings that aren't this even if we look at the top and the bottom, the top and the bottom are both pretty the same neutral gray.

What if we had an image like this That goes from light to dark in a in a fairly extreme way. If I picked a color that was a general color in here and made it into a gray and painted it, it wouldn't look as good as that one, it would be darker than the top and lighter than the bottom. So in this case, I have a little trick that I do that I think works really well. I make a gradation of grays that follow this light to dark. So I pre mix the colors. Here's what I've made, mixed a green, gray for the bottom and this color for here.

And this color for here. And these colors are matched Exactly. And then I grade them already. So I'm just going to go ahead and paint them on the sides but I'm going to show you the trick that I use to make them go from one to the other to the other scene. Honestly without a hard edge. First off, open them.

I really do like this idea of swatching the tops of the lids of your jars, it's just nice to always know what's in them. So the first thing I do is just generally pick where I'm going to break those colors. So, right about here. Oops, getting messy. Right about here is where I'll break the green. And then this is where it's lightest.

And I'll break that. I'm going to take that all the way up to about here. Oh, by the way, I have put a layer of Jess Oh, that's why it's white on it before. When you're working with several colors that are lighter. It's nice to have the primer. So on first, so now I have the, the two colors and then it gets a little darker at the top.

So it's just gonna paint that. Okay, once I get the colors where I want them, I then let it dry or blow dry it. So I'm just going to go get my blow dryer and dry it for a minute. Okay, let's take this one first. Let's go from the green to the tan. And I think I'll use a bigger brush.

Okay, so then I'm going to paint a second coat over it. And a second code of this, pretty much always need at least two coats or it looks streaky. Right I've got a second coat on and I'm not going to dry it this time instead, I'm going to take my brush, and I'm going to while they're still wet, and if they do dry, you can just put a brushstroke like this, let's say they're dry, you can just put a brushstroke there and one right here. So you're rewedding with paint right at the seam right at that hard edge. Now, make sure your brush is super dry, or no if you could see me, pounding away the paper towel here, but now my brush is really dry and I'm going to go back and forth. This they get rid of the excess paint and come back and do it again until it's really like an airbrush gradation.

At this point, I'm going to let it dry and then when it's dry I still looks kind of streaky. I can do the whole thing again, wet it here and here and then brush it until it becomes a really beautiful smooth gradation. Let me just do that for you. I'm going to blow dry this and I'll do it one more time to get it nice and smooth. If your paint is drying too fast for you to smooth it out like that, then you might want to add some retarder or some glazing liquid into your paint. If you're using the fast drying acrylic, if you're using the slow drying acrylic like this, it stays dry.

Now I'm going to put a wet area right here. And another wet area again, wet with paint, not with water. So I put it here in here because here's my blended area. I don't want to put another hard edge there. And now with a dry, clean brush, I'm gonna bring this in and go right there. Go back and forth.

See it's getting smoother and smoother. Every time I do this, I could blow dry it again, do the same thing again. This time again, putting the green here in the tan. They're not together where we started, and it'll just get smoother and smoother. And then I would do the same thing up here, too so that as you look at the painting, it just glides right into the image. This is what I've done for the paintings behind me.

The one right there. I think you could still see it a little bit on the side. It has a beautiful gradation that goes from a dark blue dark, dark blue to the brighter blue. And there you have it. interesting ways to finish off your paintings on the sides.